Pinal County scraps Flock camera contract over 'serious Fourth Amendment concerns'

FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County Sheriff Ross Teeple is pulling the plug on his department’s Flock Safety license plate cameras, walking away from a tool he praised just last year for helping rescue missing children.

What we know:

Teeple notified the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday that he will not renew the county's contract with the automatic license plate reader (ALPR) vendor when it expires at the end of September, citing "serious concerns" about government overreach and constitutional privacy.

"I just notified the Board of Supervisors and the citizens of Pinal County that we are not renewing our Flock contract," Teeple said. "I have serious Fourth Amendment concerns with some of the technology contained in those cameras, whether we have access to it or not. I swore an oath to the Constitution to protect your individual liberties until the day I die."

Flock fell out of favor

The decision marks an about-face for the first-term sheriff. At a 2025 town hall in Maricopa, Teeple pitched the camera system to local residents as a vital public safety asset. "Those cameras enhance public safety," Teeple said at the time, according to InMaricopa.com. "All the Flock cameras do is just record traffic that goes by, and I can’t tell you how many Silver Alerts have been resolved and Amber Alerts that have been resolved from those cameras."

Flock Safety's network automatically logs passing vehicles — recording license plates, makes, models and distinct features into searchable databases shared among law enforcement agencies nationwide. While police chiefs and sheriffs have long touted the technology for rapidly solving thefts and finding missing children, privacy organizations and constitutional scholars argue that continuous vehicle tracking amounts to warrantless surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Big picture view:

The pullback in Pinal County reflects a broader national trend. Major law enforcement agencies across the country, including the Los Angeles Police Department, have recently paused or ended their use of Flock Safety over data ownership disputes, unauthorized database access and Fourth Amendment concerns. Police officers in a dozen states are accused of misusing the camera system.

Local perspective:

Flagstaff recently voted to shut down its entire 32-camera Flock network, while South Tucson and Sedona also scrapped their contracts following heated public debate. Meanwhile, the Chandler City Council is delaying a decision on whether to renew its own $153,000 contract until its upcoming Aug. 13 meeting.

"The only way to stop this mass surveillance system, and the government’s involvement in it, is to stop our cities from signing away our rights through these contracts," said Nathan Taylortaft, co-director of East Valley Unite, the organization spearheading the campaign against ALPRs in Chandler. "Proponents of Flock will argue that we are on the side of crime, but it’s the opposite. Crime is being committed through Flock’s system, and we want that system ended through city ordinances, and laws protecting our privacy."

Elizabeth Lee, Democratic nominee for U.S. Congress in Arizona’s fifth congressional district, is joining Chandler residents to pressure the city to drop its contract with Flock, she said in a statement on Wednesday.

What's next:

With Pinal County's contract ending late next month, the sheriff's office will begin decommissioning its camera network. However, turning off the system may not be simple. When Verona, Wis., voted to cancel its contract, Flock reportedly refused to remove the cameras — leaving residents to cover them with black trash bags because the city couldn't confirm whether surveillance was still active.

What we don't know:

Pinal County officials have not said whether they plan to seek alternative public safety technology (Scottsdale-based Axon has its own line of "intelligent" cameras) or return strictly to traditional police patrols.

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